of a very plain and unexpensive monument to his memory in Westminster-Abbey, which that nobleman did not live to see completed. The original monument probably did not cost more than £.100. Scheemaker, as his scholar, Mr. Nollekens, informs me, probably received for his bust, twenty-five guineas. From the total silence of the Treasurer's books, which have been carefully examined with this view, it may be collected, that no fees were received by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, on Dryden's interment, nor any fine required on erecting his monument in the Abbey. The epitaph at first intended by Pope for this monument, "This Sheffield rais'd; the sacred dust below "Was Dryden once :-the rest who does not know?" seems to have been suggested by a passage in a letter from Atterbury to him, without date, but apparently written. at Bromley, in the latter end of September, 1720: "What I said to you in mine, about the monument, was intended only to quicken, not to alarm you. It is not worth your while to know what I meant by it; but when I see you, you shall. I hope you may be at the Deanery, towards the end of October, by which time I think of settling there for the winter. What do you think of some such short inscription as this in Latin, which may, in a few words, say all that is to be said of Dryden, and yet nothing more than he deserves? 66 JOHANNI DRYDENO, CUI POESIS ANGLICANA VIM SUAM AC VENERES DEBET; ET SI QUA IN POSTERUM AUGEBITUR LAUDE, ́ To shew you EST ADHUC DEBITURA. HONORIS ERGO P. ETC. that I am as much in earnest in the affair as you yourself, something I will send you of this kind, It is much to the honour of Dr. John Shadwell," the son of Dryden's celebrated antagonist, that, in a private letter written from Paris, about three months in English. If your design holds of fixing Dryden's name only below, and his busto above, may not lines like these be graved just under the name ? "This Sheffield rais'd, to Dryden's ashes just; "Here fix'd his name, and there his laurel'd bust: "More needs not; when acknowledg'd merits reign, "Praise is impertinent, and censure vain.” The thought is nearly the same as in the following lines in LUCTUS BRITANNICI, by William Marston, of Trinity College, Cambridge: "In JOANNEM DRYDEN, poetarum facile principem. From Atterbury's letter it appears, that this epitaph was left by the Duke of Buckingham, (who died in the following February) entirely to Pope. None of the proposed inscriptions, however, were adopted; but, instead of them, the following words: "J. DRYDEN. Natus 1632. Mortuus 1 Maii. 1700. Joannes Sheffield, Dux Buckinghamiensis posuit. If Dryden was born on the 9th of August, 1631, (as Pope himself tells us he was, in his inaccurate account of this very inscription, fifteen years afterwards,) when he died, he wanted three months of being sixty-nine years old after our poet's funeral, he thus expressed himself concerning him : In the Preface to the FABLES, which was probably written in Dec. 1699, or the following month, he speaks of himself as sixty-eight: but he doubtless referred to his last birthday. He was in his sixty-ninth year. So also the author of an anonymous Poem to his memory, pub. lished in folio, June 18, 1700 (speaking of his last great production, THE FABLES): "His inexhausted force knew no decay; "In spite of years, his Muse grew young and gay: And vig'rous, like the patriarch of old, His last-born, Joseph, cast in finest mould : "This son of sixty-nine, surpassing fair, "With any elder offspring may compare." The author of the article, Epitaphe, in the French ENCYCLOPEDIE, speaking of our poct's monument, says, "Les Anglois n'ont mis sur le tombeau de Dryden, que ce mot pour tout cloge: DRYDEN: et les Italiens sur le tombeau due Tasse, Les Os du TASSE. "I'l n'y a guere que les hommes de genié, qu'il soit sure de louer ainsi." This account of Tasso's epitaph is not quite accurate; for his friend Giovanni Battista Manso informs us in his life of Tasso, (Ven. 12mo. 1621, p. 234,) that coming to Rome ten years after his death (1605) and finding that no tomb had been placed over him, and that Cardinal Cinthio would not permit him to erect one, (intending to do that office himself,) he caused the following words to be inscribed on the plain stone, in the church of S. Onofrio, with which the poet's remains were covered: "HIC JACET TORQUATUS TASSUS." According to a modern traveller, (Keysler,) the Fraternity The men of letters here lament the loss of Mr. Dryden very much. The honours paide of St. Onofrio had in 1601 caused a similar inscription to be engraved on the stone beneath which Tasso was interred; but probably he is mistaken in the date. The writer of the article above referred to appears to have confounded the great Italian poet and his father, whose tomb at Mantua has this inscription: "OSSA BERNARDI TASSI." In another foreign work, which in general is not so in correct and unsatisfactory as that just quoted almost always is, NOUVEAU DICTIONNAIRE HISTORIQUE, edit. 1789. we are told, that our author produced several tragedies, which, though sprinkled with beauties, are little better than sublime farces; and that Atterbury translated two of these sublime farces into Latin verse, the one entitled ACHITOPHEL, and the other ABSALON ! "Those epitaphs are the most perfect, (says Dr. Johnson, in an Essay printed first in the year 1740,) which set virtue in the strongest light, and are best adapted to exalt the reader's ideas, and rouse his emulation. To this end, it is not always necessary to recount the actions of a hero, or enumcrate the writings of a philosopher. To imagine such information necessary, is to detract from their characters, or to suppose their works mortal, or their achievements in danger of being forgotten. The bare name of such men answers every purpose of a long inscription. "Had only the name of Sir Isaac Newton been subjoined to the design upon his monument, instead of a long detail of his discoveries, which no philosopher can want, and which none but a philosopher can understand, those by whose direction it was raised, had done more honour both to him and to themselves. F to him have done our countrymen no small service; for next to having so considerable a man of our own growth, 'tis a reputation to have known how to value him, as patrons very often pass for wits, by esteeming those that are so."--- We have here a striking contrast to the acrimonious depreciation of Dryden, which the almost forgotten "This indeed is a commendation, which it requires no genius to bestow, but which can never become vulgar or contemptible, if bestowed with judgment; because no single age produces many men superior to panegyrick. None but the first names can stand unassisted against the attacks of time; and if men raised to reputation by accident or caprice have nothing but their names engraved on their tombs, there is danger lest in a few years the inscription require an interpreter. Thus have their expectations been disappointed, who honoured Picus of Mirandola with this pompous epitaph: "Hic situs cst PICUS MIRANDOLA; cætera norunt "Et Tagus et Ganges, forsan et Antipodes. "His name, then celebrated in the remotest corners of the earth, is now almost forgotten; and his works, then studied, admired, and applauded, are now mouldering in obscurity." Dr. John Shadwell, son of the Laureate, was Physician to Queen Anne, George I. and George II.; by the former of whom he was knighted. In August, 1699, he attended the Earl of Manchester, who then went to Paris as Ambassador Extraordinary to Louis XIV.; and he continued there with that nobleman, till his return to England in September, 1701. He died Dec. 4, 1747. ⚫ Letter to Dr. Arthur Charlett, dated Aug. 4, N. S. 1700. MSS. Ballard. in Bibl. Bodl. vol. xxiv. p. 93. |